Imagine you're driving your own new car - or a rental car - and you need to park in a commercial garage. Maybe you're going to work, visiting a mall or attending an event at a sports stadium, and you're in a rush. Limited and small available spots and concrete pillars make parking a challenge. And it happens that day: you slightly misjudge a corner and you can hear the squeal as you scratch the side of your car--small scratches, but large anticipated repair costs.

Now imagine that that you can repair these unsightly scratches yourself--quickly, easily and inexpensively... or that you can go through a car wash that can detect these and other more minor scratches and fix them as the car goes through the washing garage. Fantasy? Not exactly. Not anymore. Not according to a new discovery detailed in the April 21 issue of the journal Nature, and depicted in a short video interview and simulation:

A team of researchers in the United States and Switzerland have developed a polymer-based material that can heal itself with the help of a widely used type of lighting. Called "metallo-supramolecular polymers," the material is capable of becoming a supple liquid that fills crevasses and gaps left by scrapes and scuffs when placed under ultraviolet light for less than a minute and then resolidifying.

"This is ingenious and transformative materials research," said Andrew Lovinger, polymers program director in NSF's Division of Materials Research. "It demonstrates the versatility and power of novel polymeric materials to address technological issues and serve society while creating broadly applicable scientific concepts."

The team involves researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, led by Stuart J. Rowan; the Adolphe Merkle Institute of the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, led by Christoph Weder; and the Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, led by Rick Beyer.

The scientists envision widespread uses in the not-so-distant future for re-healable materials like theirs, primarily as coatings for consumer goods such as automobiles, floors and furniture. While their polymers are not yet ready for commercial use, they acknowledge, they now have proved that the concept works. And with that, what happens next is up to the market place. Necessity, the mother of invention, will expand the possibilities for commercial applications.

"These polymers have a Napoleon Complex," explains lead author Stuart Rowan, a professor of macromolecular engineering and science and director of the Institute for Advanced Materials at Case Western Reserve University. "In reality they're pretty small but are designed to behave like they're big by taking advantage of specific weak molecular interactions."

"Our study is really a fundamental research study," said Christoph Weder, a professor of polymer chemistry and materials and the director of the Adolphe Merkle Institute. "We tried to create materials that have a unique property matrix, that have unique functionality and that in principle could be very useful."

Specifically, the new materials were created by a mechanism known as supramolecular assembly. Unlike conventional polymers, which consist of long, chain-like molecules with thousands of atoms, these materials are composed of smaller molecules, which were assembled into longer, polymer-like chains using metal ions as "molecular glue" to create the metallo-supramolecular polymers.

While these metallo-supramolecular polymers behave in many ways like normal polymers, when irradiated with intense ultraviolet light the assembled structures become temporarily unglued. This transforms the originally solid material into a liquid that flows easily. When the light is switched off, the material re-assembles and solidifies again; its original properties are restored.

Using lamps such as those dentists use to cure fillings, the researchers repaired scratches in their polymers. Wherever they waved the light beam, the scratches filled up and disappeared, much like a cut that heals and leaves no trace on skin. While skin's healing process can be represented by time-lapse photography that spans several days or weeks, self-healing polymers heal in just seconds.

In addition, unlike the human body, durability of the material does not seem to be compromised by repeated injuries. Tests showed the researchers could repeatedly scratch and heal their materials in the same location.

Further, while heat has provided a means to heal materials for a long time, the use of light provides distinct advantages, says Mark Burnworth, a graduate student at Case Western Reserve University. "By using light, we have more control as it allows us to target only the defect and leave the rest of the material untouched."

The researchers systematically investigated several new polymers to find an optimal combination of mechanical properties and healing ability. They found that metal ions that drive the assembly process via weaker chemical interactions serve best as the light-switchable molecular glue.

Schematic of optically healing polymers. The specially designed polymer molecules that make up the solid item can be disassembled by the UV light so that they flow and fill in the cracks. When the light is turned off, the molecules reassemble themselves and the filled cracks become rigid again. (Credit: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation, after Burnworth et al., Nature, April 21, 2011)

They also found the materials that assembled in the most orderly microstructures had the best mechanical properties. But, healing efficiency improved as structural order decreased.

"Understanding these relationships is critical for allowing us improve the lifetime of coatings tailored to specific applications, like windows in abrasive environments" Beyer said.

And what's next? According to Rowan, "One of our next steps is to use the concepts we have shown here to design a coating that would be more applicable in an industrial setting."

Film director and art curator Aaron Rose was at least partially right when he said, "In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary." Self-healing polymers certainly are extraordinary.

The research was funded by the Army Research Office of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the Adolphe Merkle Foundation.

Source: Science Daily

"Imagine what would be said about the political process if nobody showed up to vote, if nobody participated in this delusion that we can control the ruling classes who hold us at gun point, ... the illusion that we can control the ruling classes by choosing wich farmer gets to farm us; farmers chosen by the farmers. Stay home!"

Author: Stefan Molyneux - Source: Freedomain Radio 

Powerful ideas for all lovers of the logic of personal and political freedom - Freedomain Radio was a Top 10 Finalist in the 2007-2010 Podcast Awards, and has been named one of the 'Top 100 Most Inspiring and Innovative Blogs for Educators.' Topics range from politics to philosophy to self-knowledge to economics to relationships to religion - and how to achieve real freedom in your life. Passionate, articulate, funny and irreverent, Freedomain Radio is a philosophy conversation that shines a bold light on old topics, and invents a few new ones to boot!

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- NASA fueled space shuttle Atlantis for liftoff Friday on the final flight of the 30-year program, even though stormy weather threatened to delay the launch.

Forecasters stuck to their original 70 percent chance of thunderstorms or rain, as fuel filled Atlantis' tank in the pre-dawn hours.

Mission managers acknowledged it might seem foolish to proceed with fueling, given the dismal forecast, NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said. They said they would take another look at the forecast and decide whether it makes sense to keep counting down.

STS-135: LIVE video COVERAGE

The four shuttle astronauts suited up after sunrise despite the still-iffy launch prospects.

"Have you done your rain dance for the day?" joked Aly Mendoza, the tank and booster rocket vehicle manager.

Atlantis holds a year's worth of supplies – more than 8,000 pounds – for the International Space Station.

An estimated 750,000 people are expected to jam Cape Canaveral and surrounding towns for this final shuttle launch, reminiscent of the crowds that gathered for the Apollo moon shots.

Among the expected VIPs: 14 members of Congress, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, four members of the Kennedy family, two former NASA administrators, singers Jimmy Buffett and Gloria Estefan, and the first shuttle pilot of them all, Robert Crippen.

By 6 a.m., cars and RV were packed into almost every available space along U.S. 1 in Titusville, with cameras already trained on the launch pad in the hazy clouds across the Indian River. Many had planted chairs and staked out viewing locations just feet from the water. Some were still cocooned in sleeping bags as the sun rose.

Kenneth Cox, 25, an airport employee from Danville, Ind., joined three friends at the riverside. Hauling Lucky Charms, fixings for s'mores and a bottle of champagne to celebrate the launch, they slept off and on as the sun rose.

"It's the closing chapter of 30 years," said Cox, who went to Space Camp when he was in the fifth grade and has been enamored with the shuttle program as long as he could remember.

"I definitely think it's a somber attitude out here, because it's the last one," said Cox's friend, Simon Lin, 26, who works at Walt Disney World in Orlando. "It's brought so much to the tourist industry in Florida, and that's what we are. Closing it down, it's going to be sad."

Cherie Cabrera, 23, a Disney World employee, tried to explain the attraction.

"It's just powerful," she said. "There are so few people who have the ability to go to space, and for all of us to be here on the river, watching it launch and feeling it rise and feeling the wind, you feel like you're a part of it. You feel connected."

John and Jennifer Cardwell came from Fairhope, Ala., for their third attempt to see the shuttle launch. Twice before they made the trip only to have a flight canceled and they weren't able to stay. They brought their sons, Isaac, 6, and 3-year-old Eli.

"This is our last-ditch chance to see one," said 38-year-old Jennifer Cardwell, cradling a sleepy Eli in her arms just after dawn. "This is the end of an era, and I wanted to be able to experience it. My son is interested in space and science, and I wanted to encourage that.

"It's that last frontier, that last place left for us to explore," she said. "We've gone all over the world, and this is what's left."

NASA must launch Atlantis by Sunday or Monday or it will have to wait until at least July 16 because of an unmanned rocket launch scheduled for next week.

The 12-day mission will close out the space shuttle program, which began with the launch of Columbia in 1981. Atlantis will join Discovery and Endeavour in retirement, so NASA can focus on sending astronauts to asteroids and Mars. Private companies will take over the business of getting space station cargo and crews to orbit.

Once Atlantis soars, it will be another three years – possibly five or more – before astronauts blast off again from U.S. soil.

This will be the 33rd flight for Atlantis and the 135th shuttle mission overall.

"Everybody should be really proud how we've ended and just finishing strong," Mendoza said.

___

Associated Press Writer Mitch Stacy contributed from Titusville, Fla.

On July 6, 2010, Private Bradley Manning, a 22 year old intelligence analyst with the United States Army in Baghdad, was charged with disclosing this video (after allegedly speaking to an unfaithful journalist). The whistleblower behind the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, has called Mr. Manning a 'hero'. He is currently imprisoned in Kuwait. The Apache crew and those behind the cover up depicted in the video have yet to be charged. To assist Private Manning, please see bradleymanning.org.

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-sight, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

Short version

Full version

WikiLeaks' Collateral Murder: U.S. Soldier Ethan McCord's Eyewitness Story

The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.

After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement".

Consequently, WikiLeaks has released the classified Rules of Engagement for 2006, 2007 and 2008, revealing these rules before, during, and after the killings.

WikiLeaks has released both the original 38 minutes video and a shorter version with an initial analysis. Subtitles have been added to both versions from the radio transmissions.

WikiLeaks obtained this video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. We have analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.

WikiLeaks wants to ensure that all the leaked information it receives gets the attention it deserves. In this particular case, some of the people killed were journalists that were simply doing their jobs: putting their lives at risk in order to report on war. Iraq is a very dangerous place for journalists: from 2003- 2009, 139 journalists were killed while doing their work.

Source: collateralmurder.com

RECORDED STREAM of Assange, Žižek & Goodman Conversation July 2, 11am EDT.

WikiLeaks tweeted the Legal Complaint against Visa & MasterCard for political censorship; Forbes dot com presents a summary by Andy Greenberg: The complaint argues that the three payment firms have violated Articles 101 and 102 of the E.U. Treaty, which deal with competition among businesses and forbid the creation of anti-competitive cartels. Article 101 prevents firms from creating partnerships for the purposes of price fixing, and Article 102 forbids firms in a “dominant position” from abusing that position. Both Visa and MasterCard have claimed that payments to WikiLeaks and DataCell were suspended because they potentially violate the companies’ terms of service. MasterCard has gone as far explaining that it prohibits “customers from directly or indirectly engaging in or facilitating any action that is illegal.” Visa has stated that it is investigating “the nature of [WikiLeaks] business and whether it contravenes Visa operating rules.”

Today, at 11 am EDT, Amy Goodman To Host Discussion With WikiLeaks Editor-In-Chief Julian Assange and Slovenian Philosopher Slavoj Žižek

Democracy Now anchor Amy Goodman will host a Discussion With WikiLeaks Editor-In-Chief Julian Assange and Slovenian Philosopher Slavoj Žižek at 11 am EDT. Full information here.

Simultaneously (at 11am EST; 4pm GMT; 8pm AEST), Frontline Club will host a special "in conversation" event about this same Democracy Now broadcasting, according to their Twitter account.

Source: WLcentral.org

LIVE VIDEO STREAMING from GREECE: end June 2011. - Democrazia reale ora: DIRETTA VIDEO dalla GRECIA .

See our live streaming from WWW.NEWS247.GR what is happening in Syntagma Square in Athens, during the two days (28/06/2011 & 29/06/2011) General Strike of GSEE and ADEDY.

Guardiamo grazie lo streaming in diretta dal WWW.NEWS247.GR quello che sta succedendo in piazza Syntagma ad Atene, durante i due giorni (28/06 e 29/06) sciopero generale del GSEE e ADEDY.

VIDEO - RT talks to financial journalist Demetri Kofinas from Athens. Uploaded by RussiaToday on Jun 28, 2011 - Athens police worse than anything we've seen before...

This is the story of your enslavement; how it came to be, and you can finally be free.

Like all animals, human beings want to dominate and exploit the resources around them.

At first, we mostly hunted and fished and ate off the land - but then something magical and terrible happened to our minds.

We became, alone among the animals, afraid of death, and of future loss.

And this was the start of a great tragedy, and an even greater possibility...

You see, when we became afraid of death, of injury, and imprisonment, we became controllable -- and so valuable -- in a way that no other resource could ever be.

The greatest resource for any human being to control is not natural resources, or tools, or animals or land -- but other human beings.

You can frighten an animal, because animals are afraid of pain in the moment, but you cannot frighten an animal with a loss of liberty, or with torture or imprisonment in the future, because animals have very little sense of tomorrow.

You cannot threaten a cow with torture, or a sheep with death. You cannot swing a sword at a tree and scream at it to produce more fruit, or hold a burning torch to a field and demand more wheat.

You cannot get more eggs by threatening a hen - but you can get a man to give you his eggs by threatening him.

Human farming has been the most profitable -- and destructive -- occupation throughout history, and it is now reaching its destructive climax.

Human society cannot be rationally understood until it is seen for what it is: a series of farms where human farmers own human livestock.

Some people get confused because governments provide healthcare and water and education and roads, and thus imagine that there is some benevolence at work.

Nothing could be further from reality.

Farmers provide healthcare and irrigation and training to their livestock.

Some people get confused because we are allowed certain liberties, and thus imagine that our government protects our freedoms.

But farmers plant their crops a certain distance apart to increase their yields -- and will allow certain animals larger stalls or fields if it means they will produce more meat and milk.

In your country, your tax farm, your farmer grants you certain freedoms not because he cares about your liberties, but because he wants to increase his profits.

Are you beginning to see the nature of the cage you were born into?

There have been four major phases of human farming.

The first phase, in ancient Egypt, was direct and brutal human compulsion. Human bodies were controlled, but the creative productivity of the human mind remained outside the reach of the whip and the brand and the shackles. Slaves remained woefully underproductive, and required enormous resources to control.

The second phase was the Roman model, wherein slaves were granted some capacity for freedom, ingenuity and creativity, which raised their productivity. This increased the wealth of Rome, and thus the tax income of the Roman government - and with this additional wealth, Rome became an empire, destroying the economic freedoms that fed its power, and collapsed.

I'm sure that this does not seem entirely unfamiliar.

After the collapse of Rome, the feudal model introduced the concept of livestock ownership and taxation. Instead of being directly owned, peasants farmed land that they could retain as long as they paid off the local warlords. This model broke down due to the continual subdivision of productive land, and was destroyed during the Enclosure movement, when land was consolidated, and hundreds of thousands of peasants were kicked off their ancestral lands, because new farming techniques made larger farms more productive with fewer people.

The increased productivity of the late Middle Ages created the excess food required for the expansion of towns and cities, which in turn gave rise to the modern Democratic model of human ownership.

As displaced peasants flooded into the cities, a huge stock of cheap human capital became available to the rising industrialists - and the ruling class of human farmers quickly realized that they could make more money by letting their livestock choose their own occupations.

Under the Democratic model, direct slave ownership has been replaced by the Mafia model. The Mafia rarely owns businesses directly, but rather sends thugs around once a month to steal from the business "owners."

You are now allowed to choose your own occupation, which raises your productivity - and thus the taxes you can pay to your masters.

Your few freedoms are preserved because they are profitable to your owners.

The great challenge of the Democratic model is that increases in wealth and freedom threaten the farmers. The ruling classes initially profit from a relatively free market in capital and labor, but as their livestock become more used to their freedoms and growing wealth, they begin to question why they need rulers at all.

Ah well. Nobody ever said that human farming was easy.

Keeping the tax livestock securely in the compounds of the ruling classes is a three phase process.

The first is to indoctrinate the young through government "education." As the wealth of democratic countries grew, government schools were universally inflicted in order to control the thoughts and souls of the livestock.

The second is to turn citizens against each other through the creation of dependent livestock.

It is very difficult to rule human beings directly through force -- and where it can be achieved, it remains cripplingly underproductive, as can be seen in North Korea. Human beings do not breed well or produce efficiently in direct captivity.

If human beings believe that they are free, then they will produce much more for their farmers. The best way to maintain this illusion of freedom is to put some of the livestock on the payroll of the farmer. Those cows that become dependent on the existing hierarchy will then attack any other cows who point out the violence, hypocrisy and immorality of human ownership.

Freedom is slavery, and slavery is freedom.

If you can get the cows to attack each other whenever anybody brings up the reality of their situation, then you don't have to spend nearly as much controlling them directly.

Those cows who become dependent upon the stolen largess of the farmer will violently oppose any questioning of the virtue of human ownership -- and the intellectual and artistic classes, always and forever dependent upon the farmers -- will say, to anyone who demands freedom from ownership: "You will harm your fellow cows."

The livestock are kept enclosed by shifting the moral responsibility for the destructiveness of a violent system to those who demand real freedom.

The third phase is to invent continual external threats, so that the frightened livestock cling to the "protection" of the farmers.

This system of human farming is now nearing its end.

The terrible tragedy of the modern American system has occurred not in spite of, but because of past economic freedoms.

The massive increases in American wealth throughout the 19th century resulted from economic freedom -- and it was this very increase in wealth that fed the size and power of the state.

Whenever the livestock become exponentially more productive, you get a corresponding increase in the number of farmers and their dependents.

The growth of the state is always proportional to the preceding economic freedoms.

Economic freedoms create wealth, and the wealth attracts more thieves and political parasites, whose greed then destroys the economic freedoms.

In other words, freedom metastasizes the cancer of the state.

The government that starts off the smallest will always end up the largest.

This is why there can be no viable and sustainable alternative to a truly free and peaceful society.

A society without political rulers, without human ownership, without the violence of taxation and statism...

To be truly free is both very easy, and very hard.

We avoid the horror of our enslavement because it is painful to see it directly.

We dance around the violence of our dying system because we fear the attacks of our fellow livestock.

But we can only be kept in the cages we refuse to see.

Wake up...

To see the farm is to leave it.

Julian Assange scratches his chin and then downs a generous gulp of his pint. "They called me a cat abuser. Now I don't like cats as it turns out, but as far as I know I've never 'abused' one," he says, looking around the table slightly bemused.

The WikiLeaks founder and editor-in-chief is now arguably the world's most recognisable -- and certainly the most notorious -- champion of free speech.

But he also knows first hand how it feels to be burned by the press, and Assange bristles as he recalls some of the more bizarre personal attacks on his character.

Assange has paid a heavy price for his global crusade against secrecy.

He has been hunted, jailed and put under house arrest. And his activities have subjected him to some of the most hate-filled and violent rhetoric imaginable.

Assange has also been pilloried and abused by certain sections of the media, whose freedoms he continues to fight for.

In an interview with the Irish Independent, the world's most famous whistleblower hit out at the "chilling effect" recent high profile 'super injunctions' have on free speech.

"It's not the case that the press is never wrong. I never maintain that the press is never wrong, and certainly I have been wronged many times by (some) tabloid media.

"However, when we erect a system to address that wrong we can produce a much greater wrong, which is to prevent the press from reporting the abuses of the powerful.

"The problem is that that system is used predominantly -- in fact overwhelmingly -- by people who already have a lot of power. They already have a lot of money, they already know how to use the court system. And so you end up in a situation where newspapers become reluctant to report on the abuses of the powerful, but completely willing to report on the abuses of the powerless, or to defame the powerless, and that is not an acceptable situation. So there has to be a level playing field, there has to be equal access to justice."

Six months ago Assange was -- albeit briefly -- the most famous fugitive in the world. And he remains, in many eyes, the 'public enemy number one', certainly for some of the shadowy US government agencies trying to shut down his organisation.

The interview took place in Ellingham Hall, the mansion on the border of Norfolk and Suffolk where Assange temporarily resides under house arrest while fighting extradition to Sweden. The Swedish authorities want to question Assange over allegations of sexual misconduct, including rape, made by two women, claims he strongly denies.

And he believes if he is extradited to Sweden, the US government will move to have him tried in America for espionage.

"I have been detained -- imprisoned or under house arrest -- without being charged for six months on June 6.

"So almost six months now detained without charge. There are no charges in this case, there is no allegation that there was any lack of consent in these cases -- not even an allegation of that."

His bail conditions stipulate Assange must stay at the 18th century manor, report to police daily and wear an electronic tag. The house is owned by Vaughan Smith, a former captain in the elite Grenadier Guards who was critical in securing bail for Assange.

When he first came to Britain, it was Smith who gave him refuge in an apartment in the Frontline Club -- the West London venue that Smith set up in 2003 to champion independent journalism. On the morning of our interview, Assange was anxious to finish on time. Smith was expecting up to 30 former army comrades for dinner and it was clear his famous guest did not wish to put out his host any more than necessary.

Afterwards, Assange and his assistant Sarah Harrison joined us for a few drinks in a cosy country pub a mile or so down the road. It is about as far as he is allowed to move without consulting the local police station, where he still has to sign on daily as part of his bail conditions.

Despite the enormous pressure he is under, Assange appeared relaxed about his fate and was looking forward to his next court battle -- a two-day High Court hearing on July 12-13 where he will fight a British judge's decision to extradite him to Sweden.

In person, the 39-year-old Australian is unfailingly polite and charming. But behind every carefully constructed sentence lies a remorseless, uncompromising logic, which has put him on a collision course with some of the most powerful forces on the planet.

To his fans, Assange is a valiant campaigner for truth. But to his fiercest critics he is a publicity seeker who has endangered lives by putting a mass of sensitive information into the public domain.

The controversial online activist succeeded in uniting the American Democratic left and Republican right against him and has been described as an "enemy combatant" engaged in a form of cyber terrorism against the US.

Assange said the level of "vitriolic" language that followed the release of the international tranche of US embassy cables last December has "eased off a bit" in recent months.

But he insists that, behind the scenes, the American government will still stop at nothing to silence him.

"The United States has brought out to the public an extremely aggressive response. In private, it is also doing other things.

"That response has been the most aggressive response to an international publisher ever.

"Arguably, if we look at its responses to domestic publishers it has been the most severe response since the McCarthyism era of the early 1950s.

"There has been pressure on many different countries -- individually by the US -- to take action against us.

That pressure on Australia, for instance, resulted in the Australian government publicly announcing that it would suspend my passport, that it would start a whole new government taskforce into us involving domestic and foreign intelligence agencies, the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Defence Department and the Attorney General's office.

"A prospective asylum application in Switzerland on my behalf had the US Ambassador to Switzerland threaten the Swiss government to not accept such an application.

"The sort of public rhetoric that you saw by the (US) vice president (Joe Biden) at the beginning of the year as saying that I was a 'hi-tech terrorist' -- this is being toned down a little bit.

"I think there is a perception that the public rhetoric went too far. But under the surface these investigations continue."

Author: Shane Doran; Source: belfasttelegraph.co.uk